This video overview of How to create a fashion design portfolio demonstrates and explains the essentials to consider and goes over the digital portfolio of a fashion designer.
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[00:00] Hello, courageous creatives. Thank you for tuning in today. I'm Ludy with FashionChalkboard.com and I'm here to tell you a couple of thoughts that I had about questions that come my way about what goes into a portfolio. So whether you are a working creative and you just need to polish it, whether you are a student, whether you are in the fashion industry or the textile design industry or any of the industries that require a Portfolio. I have some thoughts and I wanted to share a template with you. Everything that I share today, which is going to be either on the wonderful Ipad and I will have a much better view of this obviously a little bit later. Or This template here or on my magical computer. Of course it's not updating now, wonder if You can see that? I'll share a screenshot of that later And the printed version. So two digital versions and one printed one.
[01:04] So here is a bunch of stuff I'm not sure that translates. I'm gonna walk through. I have some thoughts about what should go in there. And obviously the first thing that I want you to consider is whether the work that you've done is still in alignment with the job that you're going for. So a lot of times when I worked in lingerie design, for example, and we had people that interviewed with me when I was a senior designer and I was assisting interviews to hire a new assistant designer, We had people come in that never had done any lingerie before. So we didn't really have a clue on whether or not their other designs would translate into lingerie. I personally have transitioned out of jobs from one segment of the industry to the other. And whenever I did that and I knew that nothing in my portfolio represented where I was trying to go or get a job, I would create a customized project just for that job.
[02:16] I just kind of imagined that they asked me to do a project and you don't have to leave it with them. I hear a lot of about: "Oh they ripped me off." And the fear of not getting paid for something that somebody designed. No, but you can just show them and that you put in the extra effort will also show. What else? Oh, so also, depending on what stage you are in, in your career, whether you are coming straight out of design school or you were self taught, um, your portfolio's gonna vary a little bit. So of course when you first start out, you might not have had any actual product. Maybe all of your designs are still just in the research and development phase, which means there's a lot of sketching, a lot of details, but you haven't put it out there yet as a product. So people in the industry, understand that.
[03:13] Some colleges actually have you create a fashion show and sometimes people get really married to that idea of this is my fashion show. I should get hired based on what I created for that fashion show. But I do remember that if it's been awhile that you graduated and the fashion show had a particular theme and as fashion keeps moving further and further into the future, that maybe you want to create something specifically for a job that you really want to nail. So for example, if your last runway show was themed evening gowns and it was some kind of mystical theme and you're applying now for sportswear, maybe that doesn't translate. So whatever you're comfortable with in terms of designing for that interview, maybe go for it.
[04:15] Other thoughts that I had recently when considering putting this video together were that I have actually used some of my portfolio examples. I keep it pretty fresh every couple of years. Were when the freelance client approaches me, a lot of times I used some of my old artwork as a sort of insurance policy or a contract to show them, hey listen, this is the type of work I do. This is the look that my artwork has, if you want to work with me, this is what I do. So you know that ! You acknowledge that and this is what you're going to receive. So a lot of times it could happen, especially when you were hired for fashion illustrations that somebody has a certain look in their mind and their idea or they maybe had no idea. And then when you give them your work, it does not feel like what they want. You can create fashion illustrations in a digital way. You could do a hand sketch, it could be a lot of watercolor in it. It could be very stylized and almost comic book looking. So whatever. My style is is not for everyone. So when I sent over some of my recent samples, I'm telling them, look, this is who you're hiring. Are you sure? And if I get the okay and the green light, then it'll make a working relationship a lot easier because I can't change my style and I really don't want to for just any client. This has to be set in stone upfront. Okay?
[05:53] So, before I jump into showing you guys all the little or big collection of portfolio samples, go to my website and grab that template if you're stuck. And I also created a mini course that walks you through on how to use the templates and some more thoughts as you know, thoughts are everywhere, but like where to host your portfolio, what to use to put it together in terms of printed material and the kind of advantages and disadvantages of some of these different ideas. And I want to keep this kind of snippy in chart so I'm going to jump right in and thank you. And if I don't say thank you enough. Thank you for your time. Oh, did I just say that? I'll keep it short and snippy, whereas I'm recording and editing this video, I can see that it's going to get split into two parts and because it's a lot of information, I also decided to give you guys a quick 10 step checklist that you can grab. And um, before I go into my online portfolios, really quickly, I want to let you know this is part one. I'm going to continue with online portfolios which are more fashion related, textile cad related. And I'll show you a peek at the free templates and checklists. And then in part two, if you want to continue watching I'll show you the printed portfolio, which has a lot of explaining of what I like to do when I go onto a actual interview and how I can try to guide the conversation based on how I plan the work that I'm going to present and I'm also going to show in that second part the portfolio on a tablet. And what's cool about the slide show. Okay, so let me jump right in. And once again, the checklist and the mini course are free and they are my website, click the links below this video.
[07:52] And here on my website, I'm hosting my portfolio myself. This is my website and here what I decided to do is to divide things into textile design, hang tags, research and development, lingerie, loungewear and uniforms. So requires a little bit of knowing how to put a site together. But there are so many templates these days that you can just pretty much plug things in here. So this first tab right here, you can see here that I use wording and numbering. And then, um, I show my artwork. I showed the finished product and a little bit of the process, so here's option A and that the product shot option B and option C here and more, and then I tell them to keep scrolling for more textile design because I'm not there when a person comes to visit. So I'm kind of communicating with words and I'll have some tips on that in the checklist too so you can see that. I'll put the link on there too so you guys can scroll through it.
[09:29] so I'm using my templates for this as well. So you can see how the peacock layout is the same width in the frame around the picture. The same as if you were to scroll down and see my crane and then all the way through you can see this if I close this tab and then you go to hang tags development is the same width. Everything fits together. Same border around some of this work here. And then let's go into lingerie design. So this template is what I will give you guys right here. So this here is inside of Photoshop and I'll teach you guys how to set this up, how to make it easy, and you can see here how I have some of the same stuff, um, that it came from here. And then in contrast, the printed one, which I'll show you my whole printed portfolio in video two is just, um, I'll give you guys the layout as is, but what it is, is just two pages set up as a clean layout with showing the center in the frame. So everything is consistent, can make it into a pdf and print it out. And I'll show you how to customize it and make more pages if you decide to do like a four page, five page layout. And then, um,
[11:00] I also use that same template for a public e portfolio. So here on Behance, that's a very popular one. So this is where I have different categories when people arrive because you never know where they arrive. You have to put more wording because once again you're not there to explain it and then they can click on the different areas. And here it was very simple for me to just upload these jpegs and I'll show you that really quickly. The finished version is um, pretty much once you laid it out in Photoshop, you'll get like this big old jpeg and if I zoom in you can see all the details. So this is what I'm hosting either on my own website. Oops, I scrolled through this instead of zooming in this is what I'm hosting my own website or on any of these public websites where you might be found based on the keywords that you put into the descriptions. And nowadays a lot of times for designers, the um, people hiring want a link to your portfolio. This particular one I didn't lay out with my template and I remember what a pain in the ass, sorry. It was for me to stop and keep thinking about, okay, now I'm uploading one picture. Now I have to describe it, so I rather do it in my format and my template and if that's something you like, it's really easy and it also takes a lot of guesswork out of it.
[12:51] Speaking of guess work, let me show you the 10 step checklist plus tips. It's a nine page e- booklet that comes with the download and here. I just kind of summarize everything that I'm saying plus more so a couple of tips for people that have problems getting started and procrastinating and what you can do to get it done, a little bit of motivation here and then, what to do before you start kind of thinking about the final format as described in these videos and then a checklist to kind of make sure that you put your best foot forward. So yeah, grab that. The link will be below.
[13:30] If this video inspired you, gave you something new to think about or taught you, any tips, let me know in the comments, subscribe, like, and hit the bell. Okay. And that's it. So thanks for watching. Part One, And, I'll talk to you soon in part two.